Friday, August 7, 2015

Nancy Beiman Reviews Shaun The Sheep

"Shaun The Sheep" is a lightweight little movie with gorgeous production design and some very nice animation; a slight plot with the main conflict based on Laurel and Hardy's A CHUMP AT OXFORD; chase scenes and crazy machines reminiscent of Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd films, and a finale that is straight out of Chaplin's THE GOLD RUSH.

This possibly explains the otherwise inexplicable omission of dialogue on the human characters (even gibbberish would have worked, but the odd grunts and squeaks somehow seemed affected.) But I applaud their use of silent comedy influences as well as The Terminator."